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    Puerto Rico in focus: Thoughts on IU basketball forward Reed Bailey

    Mike SchumannBy IU Basketball 1 Comment
    Photo - IU Athletics

    The Daily Hoosier spent the week in Puerto Rico in connection with IU basketball’s summer tour, and had several opportunities to see the team in action.  Since nothing was televised or streamed, we are going to go player-by-player to share our thoughts on what we saw, and what to expect from Indiana’s 2025-26 roster.

    Next up is senior forward/center Reed Bailey, who transferred to Indiana from Davidson during the offseason.

    BY THE NUMBERS

    MPG – 20.7
    PPG – 8.0
    FG% – 52.2%
    3FG% – N/A
    FT% – 0% (0-1)
    RPG – 6.3
    APG – 1.7
    TOPG – 1.0
    SPG – 2.0
    BPG – .3

    WHAT STOOD OUT

    Bailey is a player the staff trusts to get a defensive rebound and push the ball up the floor himself.  He can get down the court in just a few dribbles, and has the handles to make adjustments on the fly.  In one instance he went behind the back at transition speed and then found a teammate for an open three.

    His numbers at Davidson suggest Bailey is a good passer, and that was apparent in Puerto Rico.  He has good vision, can make accurate passes off the dribble, and Bailey is not a big man where the ball goes to die with post-ups.

    Bailey can be used from a lot of spots on the floor, setting high ball screens and then rolling or popping, at the top of the offense as an initiator, or in the corner with the paint empty.  Bailey was the starting center but also played some at the four with Sam Alexis in at the five.

    Bailey’s skillset is as much stretch-four/point forward as it is center. He won’t be posting up, He rarely forces anything, and rather always seems to be looking to make the right basketball play.

    I really liked what I saw from Bailey attacking close-outs too.  He’s a fluid athlete for his size who can finish with physicality and/or finesse in the paint after attacking from the arc.

    Bailey isn’t going to be a primary scoring threat on this team.  That duty will fall to Tucker DeVries and Lamar Wilkerson, along with Tayton Conerway as the primary initiator.  But Bailey should find a lot of good opportunities to score off of all the attention generated by that trio, and he seems to have the skill and versatility to be efficient in that kind of role.

    NEED TO SEE MORE

    While Bailey attacked closeouts, he didn’t look for his perimeter shot.  He didn’t attempt a three on the trip, and didn’t take a shot outside the paint for that matter.  Bailey has never been a high-volume 3-point shooter over his career, but he did make 41.5% of his threes on 41 attempts a season ago.  So it would be advantageous to Indiana for the long ball to continue to pose a threat in his arsenal.

    Bailey is listed at 6-foot-10 and 232 pounds.  While he doesn’t shy away from contact on either end, his frame doesn’t look the part of a high major five.  There could be games where he’s physically outmatched, at least on the defensive end.  But he will likely have some advantages on the offensive end in some of those very same matchups.

    QUOTABLE

    “I thought it was pretty good,” IU coach Darian DeVries said of playing lineups with Bailey and Alexis together in Puerto Rico. “It’s been hard for us to do that much this summer, just because we don’t have enough guys to play both sides of the ball, so we haven’t been able to get them both in at the same time a ton. We’ve worked on it.

    “We got a lot more opportunity here, because you have just the five guys out there, and we could sub more. But I like what they did. I thought they brought some good length, obviously our rebounding. They were also figuring out how to play off each other on the offensive end.”

    MORE COVERAGE

    Puerto Rico in focus: Thoughts on IU basketball’s offense, defense and other big picture observations

    For complete coverage of IU basketball, GO HERE. 

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